Wednesday, October 13, 2010

While we haven't learned any new spells, many of our healing abilities have changed significantly. I'm not exactly pleased with what has happened to my quick-fire Nourish, but as Regrowth has sped up, I'm not going on a rampage about it ;)

Rejuvenation:It has a talented insta-tick when you cast it, akin to the tier 8 bonus. No major changes in use.

Swiftmend:Talented, now applies a puddle of green goo under the target. It's like a light well they don't have to click. What this means is that, when WG is on cooldown but Swiftmend is up, you need to target your Swiftmend kinda like you do a Wild Growth, hoping to bomb a group of people with it. There is still the consideration of targeting the person who needs the direct heal the most, of course, so don't just treat it like a weak Wild Growth!

Wild Growth:Longer cooldown. When you're in tree form, you can hit up to 8 targets with it (glyphed).

Lifebloom:One target only, gone are the days of rolling it on two (or more) tanks regularly. When you're in tree form, though, you get that back: remember that, in case your ToL needs to be used to save multiple tank deaths. You can pop ToL and stack LB on two (or more) tanks. Lifebloom in ToL has a different spell ID, so these lifeblooms will continue to run even if your ToL buff wears off. Additionally, casting a lifebloom will proc replenishment on up to 10 raid members.

Regrowth:Quicker cast, but the HoT is now one of our shortest, on par with Wild Growth in duration. When you're in tree form, it is insta-cast. It costs more mana than it did before, though! It is one of our most expensive heals. IMPORTANT: by cast time, it is replacing the original use of nourish as our quick casted heal. If you're having problems with hitting nourish instead by habit, I suggest swapping Nourish and Regrowth on your bars.

Nourish:Longer cast. This may take some getting used to, if you are like me and used it fairly regularly as a quick top-off heal. It's not really worth the cast time if there aren't many HoTs on the target, so remember to go to regrowth first! However, if talented, you can use nourish to refresh Lifebloom on the tank: at 18% less mana to cast than lifebloom, this makes it far more efficient for rolling a lifebloom stack and not going OoM. Just remember that you need to begin casting it around 3/3.5 seconds (haste/lag/talents all impact it) to make sure it casts before the lifebloom falls off.

Healing Touch:Still super-long (3 seconds), and 38% base mana makes it our most expensive heal (note: tooltip incorrect on wowhead as of posting). NS+HT, macro it, use it as an emergency. Yes, I have talented NS still: I like my emergency buttons, I am not a blanket raid healer. ;)

Tree of Life:Tree form is what will take the most getting used to. Think of it as an emergency button that lets you:

RAID EMERGENCY: Rapid-fire regrowth over the raid, rather than rejuv, in addition to giving you two more targets on Wild Growth. If mobs are overwhelming, your entangling roots is also now insta-cast as a tree, so use that CC!

TANK EMERGENCY: Quickly pop regrowth back on the tank(s) and then stack lifebloom on multiple targets.

BOREDOM EMERGENCY: rawr, I hassa Wrath spam! It synchronizes well with Fury of Stormrage's mana-reduction to wrath and free starfire procs.

Oh gods. Look at this. /facepalm. Well, we will be getting a remodel to it, but it's... decidedly "meh."

Kae's hubby: So...happy or not happy with the new tree of life models?

Kae: "Meh." They have more color than the old form, but only by race. They're still grumpy old tree men.

Kae's hubby: Well...I think they are less grumpy and more ummm...ambivalent?

14 comments:

Kayllnn
said...

Hey, I came to your site specifically to see what you thought about the new tree form. It upsets me that it looks so manly. I don't see how this form appeals to female gamers. It looks even more manly than the old tree form imo. It also pisses me off that my female warlock turns into a male demon when I use demon form. How can Blizzard justify this one? I just needed a place to complain lol, and I was happy to see that you weren't thrilled about the new form either.

It looks like it was pruned as part of a hedge line. I agree, though: the masculinity is disappointing, and the overall form is unimpressive. The Ancients models, at least, look intimidating, but this new form just looks kind of pathetic and laughable. I'd rather turn into a dryad!

Was reading blue posts and Ghostcrawler said, "Art is very subjective. We're very used to the phenomenon of half of a class loving say their tier set art and the other half thinking they are the worst thing ever.

Messing with player models is always risky and we know the current Tree of Life model is one of those things that is either loved or hated. That is why, as promised, we are offering a minor glyph if you just prefer the older, treant-based, version of ToL."

Thought it might make some people happy. The old form isn't thrilling but at least there are options.

'That is why, as promised, we are offering a minor glyph if you just prefer the older, treant-based, version of ToL.'

WHEW! TY Blizz!

Nourish is also giving me fits . . . I'm still having issues trying to figure out the right time to use it. I intellectually know to use it after rejuv, regrowth LB, etc, but dang does it take getting used to.

At least swiftmend w/eff is a treat to use. My guild will take some getting used to it, but using it with wild growth in heroics is proving very fun.

New stuff is new. What will take a GIGANTIC amount of mental readjustment is trying to throw in DPS alongside heals in some situations. I'm waiting for the raid encounter that will force me to heal AND DPS. I know it's coming, just don't know which one.

For all intents and purposes Nourish and Healing touch (and spirit as a stat) are useless at this point (level 80). Our regen is just through the roof and WotLK encounters are still designed around the quick heal.

I thought I would like the whole Swiftmend / Efflorescence effect being linked together but after raiding with I noticed that I no longer use Swiftmend for its original purpose - as a quick emergency button. Looking at my logs my overhealing on SM went from 20% (pre 4.01) to > 80% just because I wanted to keep Eff up as much as possible. Something just doesn't feel right about that.

After running a couple randoms - ^THIS! Tank nearly died once because I was trying to spam Nourish by muscle memory, instead of Regrowth. (Of course, he didn't help matters by doing a big chain pull like it was pre-4.0 and running out of range initially)

The Lifebloom stack refresh from the talent (can't remember the name ATM) is handy, but I keep waiting to long to start the Nourish and narrowly miss the refresh. Safest bet is >3 seconds left, hit the Nourish, else hit Lifebloom the old-fashioned BC way.

Haven't popped Tree yet. No need so far.

Beyond that - Good Lord, this class/spec will be sooooo nerfed. We are so OP right now. Going to start reforging some Spirit into Haste to get to that magic 1015 rating.

Hey all. I totally agree on the frustrating slooow nourish. Though, as Kae said, try swapping Regrowth and Nourish on your bars. Worked for me :) Got one question about haste, Kae. I can't find the number to hit the GCD anywhere. Is it because it's too high to reach or...? Ofcourse i'll be going for 1015 but it'd still be nice know that where that puts me on the GCD :) Oh and btw, i'm so getting that ToL glyph :P

I haven't had the chance to really dig into the 4.0 haste math lately, which is why I haven't posted about it yet. I do intend to before Cataclysm, though, as it's pretty important to understand those numbers and I like graphs :)

There is always a point where too much haste will start gimping your spellpower and regen stats, which are also important; that's why most haste posts are focused on just pushing another tick of rejuv into its duration (the magical 1015) and leaving that as the soft cap. I'm still running at the old softcap, personally, as it hasn't given me any problems and I was paranoid about mana. :)

Okay, thanks for clearifying :) I'm going to stick to the old cap as well since reforging all i can into haste won't even bring me to 1015 (haven't been very lucky in ICC hehe). looking forward to see more posts about haste then. I feel like i'm missing something not knowing those numbers.